Truth Social malfunctioned on Saturday night amid President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States had bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Starting around 8 pm ET on Saturday, attempts to load the social network, which is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, displayed error messages. “Network failed,” a message on Truth Social reads. “Please try again.”
Trump’s initial Truth Social announcement that the United States had entered Israel’s war against Iran posted at 7:46 pm ET, stating that the US had waged a “very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.” Trump’s account on the social media platform X posted a screenshot of the bombing announcement at 7:53 pm ET.
“All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,” Trump continued. “All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Trump frequently shares posts to Truth Social about issues of national and international importance. The president appeared to post multiple times after news of the US bombings against Iran were first announced.
DownDetector, a website that crowdsources service outages, saw an influx of reports of Truth Social going down around 8 pm. The reason for the apparent outage was not immediately clear. NetBlocks, which monitors internet accessibility, posted on BlueSky just before 9 pm ET: “Truth Social is experiencing international outages for many users after US President Donald Trump announces strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.”
Truth Social did not immediately respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
US and Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to The New York Times that US forces had conducted airstrikes on the Fordo and Natanz facilities. The condition of the US targets were not yet confirmed as of just before 9 pm ET.
Israel first began bombing targets in Iran on June 13. The two countries have repeatedly targeted each other since.
On Wednesday, Truth Social reportedly sent an email to at least some users encouraging them to follow Trump’s account. The email read in part, “If you aren’t following President Donald J. Trump on Truth Social, you’re missing an essential resource for navigating world affairs today.”
Trump will hold a televised address at 10 pm ET, according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
